


like thread through a needle

by fairytiger



Category: Whiskey Cavalier (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 07:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18310559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytiger/pseuds/fairytiger
Summary: “Will, move.”“If I move, he moves.” A pause. “I’ll be fine.”But he wouldn’t be.“Take the shot, Frankie.”But she didn’t.





	like thread through a needle

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't decide between happy future fic and angsty botched-mission fic so why don't we have both dot gif
> 
> title taken from "separation", by w.s. merwin
> 
> Your absence has gone through me
> 
> Like thread through a needle
> 
> Everything I do is stitched with its color.

_Frankie doesn’t sleep much these days._

_She tries, really she does, with lavender face masks, Tylenol PM, and a healthy glass of wine, but still she just stares at the ceiling. Watching the fan spin, listening to the sirens just outside her window, thinking about Marrakech._

_About the sniper rifle heavy on her shoulder as she took aim, squinting against the Moroccan sun._

_About Will, the bait, literally caught in the crosshairs._

_About Jai’s voice in her ear._

_“Take the shot, Frankie.”_

_Standish._

_“They’ve got backup coming in hot.”_

_Susan._

_“We’re running out of time.”_

_About her finger poised on the trigger._

_“Will, move.”_

_“If I move, he moves.” A pause. “I’ll be fine.”_

_But he wouldn’t be._

_“Take the shot, Frankie.”_

_But she didn’t._

\--

In the end, they elope.

“Does it count as eloping if it comes with a dossier?” Jai asks, flipping through the pages. 

“Yeah, I’m not going to read that.” Standish tosses the laminated binder on to the empty seat next to him. The lights are dim in the cabin of the private jet, but he slides on a pair of sunglasses anyway, turning up the volume on his wireless headphones.

Susan yanks them down as she glides to her seat by the window. 

“Detailed itinerary or not, I think it’s sweet. And not terribly surprising given...you know.”

“Given what?” Will asks, not looking up from his vows notebook. He’s up to four single-spaced pages--Frankie counted--and every time she tries to get a closer look, he covers it, like a kid shielding the answers to a math test. 

“You two,” Susan continues. “You’ve never done things...”

“Traditionally?” Jai offers just as Standish mutters “correctly?”

“We haven’t taken off yet,” Frankie says, pointing toward the emergency exit. “There’s still time to kick you out.” 

“And even if we were midair?” Will says under his breath, gently pressing his knee to hers. She presses back.

“There are parachutes in the backpacks.”

“Of course.”

\--

In the end, it almost didn’t happen at all.

\--

_Ray, of all people, is the one to tell her. Frankie knows what he’s going to say as soon as he walks in the bar--can see it in his sad-sack posture and droopy eyes--so she only half-listens, pouring the last of the scotch into a tumbler and picking up on only the most important words._

_“The Marrakech incident” and “compromised security” and “disbanding the team”._

_She throws the glass into the sink at that last one._

_“Where are they?”_

_“They’re safe.”_

_Frankie twists his arm back with one hand, sending him face first into the bar top._

_“Where are they, Ray? Do they know about this?”_

_“Yes, they know! You were my last stop. For...obvious reasons.”_

_He yelps in pain when she twists his arm harder, but it doesn’t make her feel any better._

_“Under federal law, I can’t tell you where they are, Frankie,” Ray says, all but begging. Then, gently, “even if I want to.”_

_She gives his arm one more twist for good measure and walks out._

\--

They each have one rule for the wedding.

Frankie’s not allowed to carry weapons.

Will’s not allowed to cry.

They break both.

\--

_“You’re benching me?” is the first thing Frankie says when she storms into the New York office. “For how long?”_

_“It’s not a punishment,” Casey says, hands up in half-hearted surrender. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”_

_“It’s bootcamp, what the hell else would you call it?”_

_“A breather. A reset. Just until we can untangle Marrakech.”_

_Frankie flexes her fingers into the cold steel of the desk. She wouldn’t be surprised if she left dents._

_“I don’t want to talk about Marrakech.”_

_“You’re going to have to. Eventually. In the meantime, you’re at Peary.”_

_“For. How. Long,” she repeats through her teeth._

_Casey looks at her with a bored kind of pity._

_“For as long as it takes.”_

\--

It’s hard to pick a honeymoon spot when you’ve been everywhere.

“Not a bad problem to have,” Will says from the kitchen, flipping a pancake in the cast-iron skillet one-handed. 

“Getting better,” Frankie observes, leaning over the counter to steal a chocolate chip. “Any soreness?”

The shoulder in question shrugs.

“Not much. And stop avoiding the subject.”

“I’m not avoiding, I just don’t care.”

There was a time when that would have sent him into a tailspin; lectures upon treatises on the importance of feelings and how best to express them.

It barely earns her a glance now.

“Not that I don’t _care_ care. I just don’t care where we go, as long as…”

The corner of Will’s mouth lifts, and he makes a carry-on motion with the spatula.

“Come on, you can say it. ‘As long as we’re together.’”

She grabs another chocolate and throws it at him.

“That was not what I was going to say.”

“Uh huh.”

“It wasn’t!” Frankie lifts herself to sit on the counter. “I was going to say ‘as long as there’s a minibar.’”

“As long as there’s a bike path.”

She hooks a leg around his waist, pulling him closer.

“As long as there’s a shooting range.”

“Well, that’s just a given.”

He dots the words along the freckles on her neck.

The pancakes burn.

\--

_Casey was right; benching her isn’t the punishment._

_It’s the waiting._

_Frankie loses track of the weeks at Peary. They all blur together in the morning runs, target practice, weapons training. It’s all muscle memory, and when memories of another kind try to snake their way in, she runs longer, faster, until the pain in her legs is a close second to the one in her chest._

_“Heart”, says a familiar voice in her head. “It’s called a heart.”_

_She keeps to herself, refusing to make friends or even idle chat with the new recruits. They used to be more discreet with their whispers, but now they talk freely._

_“She blew the entire mission, nearly got her team killed.”_

_“Wasn’t she just trying to protect them?”_

_“Yeah, and look where that got her. How good could they have been anyway--”_

_Frankie throws her arm into the recruit’s chest and pins him against the wall of the mess hall, raising him a foot off the ground._

_“Say one more word about my team.”_

_“Trowbridge, that’s enough,” calls an officer on the other side of the room._

_She puts more weight into her arm, lifting him higher._

_“You think you know better? You think you’d do it differently? I hope to hell you get the chance and then you can tell me how easy it is to leave your friends for dead.”_

_“Trowbridge,” says the officer again, his voice low and thick with warning. “Put him down.”_

_She releases her grip. The recruit crumples to the floor._

_That earns her an extra ten miles the next morning._

_It’s worth it._

\--

They settle on Wyoming.

“That sounds terrible. No offense.” Jai’s derision is crisp and clear, even through comms. “Actually, I don’t mind if you’re offended. That sounds terrible.”

“Good thing you’re not going,” Will says, hauling his duffel into the back of the Jeep. 

“Why are you even calling?” comes Susan’s voice. “You should be off the grid by now.”

“Oh, I had every intention of not talking to you guys for a good week,” Will says, climbing into the passenger seat. “I was looking forward to it-- _no offense_ \--but Fiery here had other ideas.”

Frankie rolls her eyes, turning the key until the Jeep roars to life.

“I want status reports before we go. Standish, did you secure the--”

“Yes.”

“What about--”

“Yep.”

“Okay, but--”

“Literally the answer to every question you might have is either ‘did it’, ‘doing it’, or ‘will be done by the time you two get back.’ And speaking of ‘doing it’, I cannot believe you guys are still talking to us instead of--”

“We’ve got you covered,” Jai interrupts, a little more fondness in his voice. “Now go.”

Will doesn’t have to be told twice. He pulls the piece from his ear and tosses it out the moving car.

Frankie stares at him.

“Yeah, that just happened. And you know what,” Will says, clasping her free hand between his. “It felt good.”

“Will--”

“Can we agree absolutely no work for the next week? No talking about it, no thinking about it. Just you and me and one of our country’s most glorious national parks.

“Will?”

“I know you can do it. Free yourself! Let go!”

“Will!”

“What?”

“You know you just littered, right?”

Will’s face goes white.

“Oh god, turn around, we have to go back.”

\--

_When bootcamp doesn’t break her, they send her back to New York._

_She has an office in data analytics, a department in a sub-basement of headquarters so far below the ground, Frankie’s not sure it’s ever seen the sun._

_Ray brings her a plant, like it’s a housewarming._

_Like this is permanent._

_“It’s a peace lily,” he says, placing it in one corner of the windowless room. “It’s supposed to help with depression.”_

_“You think I’m depressed, Ray?”_

_“No. Nope. Just an interesting fact...toid. But if you wanted to talk about anything--”_

_“Are you going to tell me where they are?”_

_“Frankie--”_

_"Then we have nothing to talk about. Get out.”_

_Ray nods, resigned._

_“Okay, fair enough. But you should take a good look at the flowers,” he says, gently pulling on the end of a leaf as he goes. “Or so I hear.”_

_Frankie waits for the elevator doors to close before she kneels in front of the plant, inspecting one of the white buds. When her finger brushes the petals, something small and winged appears from inside. Frankie cups it in her hands, the buzz of electricity vibrating in her palms._

_A butterfly. Robotic and made of orange plexiglass, but a butterfly all the same._

_When she sees the “JD” etched into one of the wings, she presses it to her chest, so relieved she could cry._

\--

It’s quiet in Jackson Hole.

“Too quiet,” Frankie says through a yawn on their first morning. 

“I’d like to take a little credit for your sleep deprivation,” Will says as he fills her coffee. “But I’m guessing it was the frogs?”

“And the crickets! So many damn crickets.”

Will’s smile is easy and knowing.

“You hate this, don’t you.”

“I don’t hate you,” she says, reaching for his hand, running a thumb over the band on his left finger.

“High praise. C’mon,” he says, tugging her up. “A run will make you feel better.”

So they run, in the morning and in the evening, just as the sun sets behind the Tetons. 

They build fires at night, leaning back on a spread of blankets to look at the stars they never get to see back home. Will points out constellations, claiming he could chart the sky if they were ever lost, and Frankie threatens to make him prove it. 

They go into town for lunch and groceries, and if anyone so much as looks their way, Will pounces on them with a handshake.

“I’m Will, and this is my wife, Francesca.”

“Okay, I love you,” she says, looping an arm through his as they walk back to the cabin. “But did the old man buying wiper blades absolutely need to know that?”

“I know, I just--I like saying it.”

It’s genuine curiosity that makes her voice soft, her tone gentle. 

“Why?”

“Because I’ve only ever been married as a cover. For a long time, I thought that was as close as I was ever going to get.”

“To marriage?”

“Marriage,” he nods, glancing sideways at her with a small smile. “This. You.”

Small admissions like this still surprise her, all these months later. She knows he’s capable of skywriting, gestures as big as his heart, but he knows her well enough--loves her well enough--not to go there. He parcels them out instead, little gifts that she can tuck away for later, when the missions are long and the miles between them longer.

The lump in her throat surprises her, too. Kissing him has proven an incredible avoidance tactic in the past, and she’s not afraid to deploy it now, even in the middle of downtown.

“We’re in public, you know” he smiles against her lips.

“Then I guess we should race back to the cabin.”

She beats him there by a good two minutes.

He more than makes up for keeping her waiting.

\--

_Standish is easier to find. He makes sure of that._

_Frankie doesn’t even realize what she’s looking for until the WiFi goes out in her apartment. When she searches for her network, she finds **PIZZADELIVERYGUYNOTHINGTOSEEHERE** instead. _

_“Conspicuous much?” she says as she climbs inside the neon green van sitting just around the corner from her place._

_“Hiding in plain sight and all that. And this is the best I could do on my very limited, unsubsidized budget. You want some?” Standish opens a box of what smells like day old Hawaiian pizza, and maybe she’s going soft, but Frankie’s never been so happy to turn down something so disgusting._

_He tells her what he remembers from Marrakech, how he lost comms not long after the ambush. How he thought he was as good as dead when the safe house was raided, but that it was only their guys coming to airlift him out._

_“Seemed nice at the time, until they tranqued me. Next thing I knew, I was back in my basement with no credentials and no clue where you guys were. What the hell happened?”_

_Frankie still doesn’t want to talk about Marrakech._

_But with Jai’s butterfly in her jacket pocket and Standish using an old flannel for a napkin, she might be getting closer._

_“Have you heard from...anyone?” Frankie asks. “Do you know where they are?”_

_“I don’t. And before you dislocate my shoulder like you did Ray’s--nice work, by the way--I genuinely don’t know. I thought I had a lead when I tracked a Spotify account streaming_ a lot _of Kelly Clarkson, but no dice.”_

_Kelly is on his workout mix, not depression, Frankie thinks to herself, but pushes it aside._

_“Good to see you, Standish,” she says, only a little surprised to find that she really means it. “If you hear anything--”_

_“I know how to find you.”_

_She smiles._

_“I’m counting on it.”_

\--

They still fight, maybe even more than they used to, with walls down and hearts exposed, their self-inflicted bruises too easy a target. 

Will’s recovery is long, and even with Susan clearing him for psych, his physical injuries keep him in New York and out of the field.

“It’s fine,” he tells Frankie while she packs for Tokyo. “I’m totally fine with it.”

“And I totally believe you.” She slings her bag over her shoulder, kissing him quickly. “Keep us safe out there.”

“Try not to make it too difficult.”

The hardest part is that Will’s actually good at it. He’s patient, level-headed, and can see the bigger picture when they can’t get out of their own way. It’s what makes him a great agent, an even better leader, and Frankie knows that it kills him he can’t put those skills to use on the ground. 

When she gets home, tired and jet-lagged, she finds him in the gym. She hangs back, watching him lift weights far heavier than what the doctor’s cleared him for. His left arm is strong, smooth, but the right still trembles. His face goes red as he curls it, presses it above his shoulder--

“Will, don’t.”

He drops it with a growl, half pain, half frustration.

“The hell, Frankie.”

“You trying to set yourself back a few weeks?” she says, setting the weight back on the shelf. 

“The physical therapist said I have to push it a little.”

“Push it, not rush it.”

He ignores that, wiping his face with a towel.

“How was the flight?”

Frankie comes around to the bench, straddling the sides.

“Long. Standish hacked the in-flight entertainment. Made us watch the entire first season of Big Little Lies so we can catch up in time for his season two premiere party. I’m definitely sick that night, by the way.”

But Will doesn’t bite. 

“Sorry it was such a hardship,” he says, slinging the towel over his shoulder.

“Will--”

“Welcome home, by the way,” is his parting shot before slamming the door closed.

\--

_There’s an awful kind of knowing that comes right before you get terrible news._

_It’s a cold dread that unwinds in your stomach, slows down time, makes the seconds between hearing the phone ring and answering it feel like the longest of your life._

_It’s how Frankie felt before she got the call about her parents._

_It’s how she feels now, as an unknown number flashes on her screen._

_“Frankie? Frankie, oh thank god.”_

_She’s up and out of her chair at the sound of Susan’s voice._

_“What’s wrong? Where is he?”_

_“St. Francis,” Susan says, a waver in her voice betraying her calm. “He’s alive, but he took a bullet in his shoulder, it hit the brachial artery--Frankie, he lost a lot of blood.”_

_Frankie doesn’t know how she gets to the hospital, barely registers stopping at the nurses’ station, making the miserably long walk to the ICU. Jai and Standish are in the waiting room, Susan just visible through the glass door to Will’s room._

_Frankie’s not a hugger, but she’s glad Susan is, if only to keep her upright when she walks in. The monitors, the tubes, the bruises--he’s so far from the Will she knows, she could almost convince herself it isn’t him._

_“He was at a flower market when it got held up,” Susan says as they watch him. “He took down two of the three, but the last guy got him before he ran out. He was off duty, he wasn’t wearing a vest, the idiot.”_

_“What was he doing at a flower market?”_

_Susan smiles with a sad shrug._

_“Has he ever needed a reason?”_

_Frankie keeps watch while the rest go to the cafeteria for coffee. She pulls up a chair to his bed and takes Will’s hand. It’s cold, and she rubs her thumb across his palm._

_“I know you wanted me to hold your hand, but this seems a little extreme.”_

_The monitor beeps in response, and the desperate, quiet fear pounding at her heart keeps her talking._

_“It’s my fault you’re here. I’m sure Susan would tell me I’m misplacing blame, trying to control the situation by taking ownership of it, but I think in this case it really is my fault. Because if I hadn’t done what I did in Morocco, you wouldn’t be here. We’d still be a team. We’d be in Zurich, or something, taking down a counterfeit scheme, or undercover at La Scala. I’d never admit it if you were conscious, but you do look really good in a tux.”_

_She laughs, an attempt to steady her breath, but the tears come anyway._

_“I’m really sorry, Will. And if you could just wake up, I promise you can throw this back in my face for the rest of our lives. This and saving my life in France, they’re all yours. Okay?”_

_Frankie waits, watching him until she falls asleep, still holding his hand._

\--

The next time she finds Will in the gym, Frankie’s ready for him.

“What are you doing here?” he says, refusing to meet her eyes in the mirror.

“You wanna fight?” She wraps the last of the athletic tape around her hands. “Let’s fight.”

This gets her the briefest of glances.

“What?”

“You think you’re ready to go back out there. Show me.”

“I’m not going to fight you--”

Frankie sweeps his legs with one kick, sending him flat on his back. He looks up at her, a glimmer of challenge flickering between the anger in his eyes. 

“Are you crazy?”

“Probably.” She throws a punch, but he catches her arm, using his feet to send her up and over him.

They spar for the better part of an hour, matching each other move for move, strike for strike. He’s careful with his right arm, but the left compensates, and for everything Frankie sees coming, there’s plenty she doesn’t. It keeps her on her toes and makes her forget why she came down here in the first place.

And then she remembers.

They’re out of breath, circling each other on the mat. 

“Had enough?” Will asks.

“Depends,” Frankie says, before unleashing a roundhouse kick he’s not ready for. He goes down, and Frankie takes the opportunity to pin him, one leg on either side of his torso.

“Have you had enough of the pity party?”

Will opens his mouth to argue, but stops, letting his head fall back on the mat.

“Yes.”

“I fight because I love, you know.”

The word gets a small, begrudging smile out of him.

“I know.”

“And you know that we want you back out there just as much as you do. But I didn’t marry a prideful idiot who would put ego above the safety of his team, did I?”

“I mean, the idiot part is probably true--”

She shuts him up with a kiss. 

“Truce?”

“Truce.”

Frankie helps him up, but Will doesn’t let go of her hand, pulling her close. 

“Is it too soon to talk about how unbelievably hot that was?”

Frankie tosses him a sly smile as she pushes away, flinging off her tank top as she goes.

“Hit the showers, Whiskey.”

\--

_“Frankie?” a voice whispers._

_She can’t move, can’t open her eyes. She’s too tired, emotionally exhausted._

_“Frankie,” the voice says a little louder. “You’re on my IV.”_

_Frankie bolts upright and immediately regrets it. Her neck and back are completely wrecked from sleeping hunched over on the bed all night, and there’s definitely the imprint of an IV on her cheek, but she doesn’t care._

_“You’re awake.”_

_Will nods, slowly._

_“For about an hour.”_

_“Why didn’t you say anything?”_

_“You don’t like being woken up, if I remember.”_

_She’d hit him if he hadn’t just been shot._

_“Suze went to go get some coffee if you want to--”_

_“I love you.”_

_Will blinks at her._

_Frankie clears her throat._

_“Sorry, you go first. Susan’s where?”_

_“You love me?”_

_Frankie shrugs._

_“Yeah. I figured I should tell you before you, I don’t know, run into a burning building to save a kitten or something.”_

_“Wow, that’s so sweet, I don’t know if my heart can take it.”_

_“Don’t even joke.”_

_Will tugs on her hand until her lips meet his._

_“This isn’t technically a response,” Frankie says between kisses._

_“I know.”_

_“You don’t have anything to say back?”_

_“So needy. You gotta be less emotionally available.”_

_“Are you kidding me?”_

_Will just smiles._

\--

“Mission accomplished,” Frankie says, descending the steps of the Grand Palace.

“Okay, go team,” Will says through the comms. “You guys looked great out there, even all the way from New York.”

“I’m pretty sure he just means you,” Jai whispers to her, offering Frankie a hand as they make their through the Bangkok streets.

“Not with the way you’re working that navy suit, my friend.”

“I hate when you do that.”

“Does this mean we get to go eat now?” Standish asks. “The hotel smells like potstickers and it’s an actual crime I haven’t had one yet.”

“Agreed,” comes Susan’s voice. “I say dinner, drinks, dancing.”

“Oh man, seriously? How come we never go dancing here?” Will says. 

“Because you’re too eager,” Jai says, as he and Frankie climb into a cab.

“And calling what you do ‘dancing’ seems generous,” says Standish.

“Frankie, you want to back me up here?”

“I never agreed to that. I _specifically_ never agreed to that.”

“You’ll be missed,” Susan says. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah. Have fun out there. Frankie, I’ll see you at home?”

Frankie looks out the window of the cab to hide her smile.

“See you at home.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, auraispurple is the reason this exists. thanks for everything, tango


End file.
